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Sunday, April 12, 2009

This is a little late, but...

If you're like me, you think new Yankee Stadium is a crime, even if you hate the team that plays inside it.

A fan's perspective "The overall impression I got was that this place is a mall featuring a baseball field." Those of us who still feel a shred of humanity left in this consumer zombie world can understand exactly what he means by this.

Us Reds fans have had a brand new park - we've had a few of those in our very long existence, but our best years were in that cookie cutter on the river, and for me, it was the only stadium I knew. When they built our new park, they tried very hard to capture the spirit of the Cincinnati Reds, and it doesn't feel like a circus. But - they've just put in a massive HD television on an already giant scoreboard, and they've replaced the manual scoreboard in leftfield with more televisions. Televisions everywhere. The drug of the nation.

Will Leitch has a nice article in the latest issue of Sporting News about something like this. In a nutshell, he said that everyone is building these "retro" stadiums that play on the past. They do a good job at evoking past moments and memories in team history but nothing for the ability to create new ones. Televisions and HD screens are exactly this... they distract fans from the game on the field.

I used to be angry at baseball, especially beginning (obviously) in '94.

But now I recognize that baseball is just mirroring the world and so have a better 'tude towards the game. I was resentful when it seemed baseball was singularly corrupt, but now I see that it's pandemic, from Enron to our banking system, from the liberal MSM to politicians incapable of restraint.